OM-3  – not just a hipster street camera?

The new OM System OM-3 is the most powerful small digital camera on the market. It achieves this by shoehorning the sensor and imaging pipeline of the pro OM-1 Mark II into a new, small and elegant body. However, despite having the same range of functions as the OM-1, the new camera has fewer customisable buttons than the OM-1, has the viewfinder resolution of the OM-5, and has a smaller body, with no OM systems grip available. Is it really practical to use it for the same roles as an OM-1, or is it only valid as a hipster street camera?

TL:DNR summary:- the OM-3 can cover every role the OM-1 can, and in a few key areas is more versatile.

Only five programmable buttons?

The OM-1 is a very sophisticated and highly customisable camera. In particular, it has 8 programmable buttons, which allow access to complex functions without having to use the menu system. The OM-3 only has 5 programmable buttons, so how on earth can you get access to all the OM-1 functions without going into the menu?

This was a major concern to me prior to receiving the camera. On my OM-1 I have custom buttons set up for all the major computational features, such as Hi-Res shot, Live ND, Focus stacking, and Focus bracketing. Repeating this on the OM-3 would leave only a few buttons left. It turns out my concerns were not justified, as the OM-3 has a genius new feature, which, I think, is a genuine breakthrough in smart camera controls. This is the brand-new CP, or Computational Photography button, that makes the OM-3 more useable than the OM1, not less.

Pressing the CP button and rotating the front dial provides access to every computational feature (except for live time and live composite, which as before are accessed from the Bulb menu). Having a single place to access all the smart camera attributes is a game changer, and recent owners of the OM-3 have noted how they are starting to use them all far more than before. The action of selecting the Smart feature is the same as with the OM-1 and does not involve any more button presses. It is an extremely clever idea, and I think it should be implemented ASAP in the OM-1 cameras as well.

With all the computational features assigned to a single button, I have 4 left to assign to other controls, just as many as with the OM-1, and far more than with the OM-5. And there is one other feature that takes the OM-3 ahead of the OM-1 in usability.

Five named custom settings!

I photograph across 5 genres of photography. In many Olympus cameras, the specialised settings for a genre like Birds in Flight, can be assigned to custom settings on the mode dial. No other camera system has such a powerful and elegant approach (and the Nikon Z8 and Z9 are not at all good at this).

However, the OM-1 and it’s predecessors only have 4 custom settings. That means one of my genres has to be dropped off, and laboriously re-added to the camera when needed. In practice, I keep an OM-1 Mk I for macro and have an OM-1 Mk II set up for landscape, birds in flight, street and astro.

The OM-3 now has five custom settings, which means that every one of my 5 genres is perfectly set up and available with the click of a dial. And even better, unlike any other camera system I know, they can now be named! This is a game changer. The name of the custom setup appears on the screen when you select it, and is also transferred to the phone when you save it. Such an improvement!

In a separate post, I have pinned a giant spreadsheet of all OM-3 settings, plus my settings files, so you can set up your OM-3 with all 5 genres also.

And another five for video!

I am absolutely not a video shooter, although this feature may make me one. OM systems have implemented another genius control feature here, which was immediately copied by Panasonic in the S1RII.

The simple act of moving the video controls to a separate dial on the top left of the camera, freed up the 5th custom setting on the mode dial on the top right, and also enabled all 5 of those custom settings for video. This means that 5 very sophisticated video setups are accessible with a click of the mode dial, in addition to the 5 now available for photo shooting. This is another one of the ways in which the OM-3 exceeds the OM-1 in functionality.

The viewfinder

As much nonsense is said about electronic viewfinder resolution (EVF) as about sensor size. Sensor and EVF resolution are of course directly related. The viewfinder does not show you the actual scene you are shooting. It only shows you a view of the sensor, and the only EVF number that makes sense is the relationship of the viewfinder resolution to the sensor resolution. You can not resolve more detail than the sensor contains! Here are the EVF: sensor percentages for some popular compact and full-size cameras.

The Sony A7CR, which received an 88% silver award from DP review, resolves only a tiny 3.87% of the sensor through its EVF. The OM-1 EVF resolution is 28.8%, and has better resolution of the sensor by a factor of 7.5! The highest-resolution sensor in the market at the moment is the 9.44 Mpx of the Sony A7RV, and the OM-1 out-resolves that by a factor of 2. You could plausibly argue that the EVF resolution of the OM-1 is overkill, and it is only there for marketing purposes.

Now let’s look at the resolution % of the OM-3 It sits above the Sony A7CR (and has 3x better resolution %!), the A7CII, the Nikon Z7II, and the Fuji X100VI and XT5. It is only a fraction below the Canon R5. It is absolutely excellent for resolving the detail of the 20Mpx sensor, and there is no camera on the market (other than the OM-1) that offers significantly better EVF resolving power relative to its sensor size.

Get a grip

The OM- 3 aims to fill a need in the market for beautiful looking, retro styled cameras that use modern technology. In particular, it eschews the huge grip and all black body of almost every digital camera available today. Instead, it is small, simple, and elegant.  On this body, larger pro lenses, and particularly long telephoto zooms and primes can be front-heavy, and one-handed shooting (something I never do) is more challenging.

However, custom 3rd part grips have already arrived on the market, which make the OM-3 much more like its larger pro brothers.

I have ordered this one, which has a dark rosewood grip on a silver base. A solid grip changes the lens options for the OM-3 considerably.

The OM-5, previously my urban and travel camera of choice, weighed 414g, and had a plastics reinforced body. The OM-1 weighs 599g, has a largely metal body and has a large integrated grip. I use it comfortably with my 300mm F4 prime lens, and it is well-balanced. The OM-3 weighs 496g, so exactly midway between the OM-1 and the OM-5, and also has a metal body.

I estimate the new aluminium alloy/wood OM-3 grips will weigh 100g or so (my 3rd party OM-5 grip weighs 130g), bringing the OM- 3 body plus grip up to around 600g. This will be the same weight as the OM-1, with a metal body and a full grip included. This means that the OM-3 with grip will have almost identical handling to the OM-1, for occasions when that is needed. This particularly applies to long telephoto lenses, and possibly all-day street photo sessions with a pro prime lens.

However, I intend to rarely, if ever, use the grip because there is no need to! Plenty of superb lightweight lenses exist for the OM-3.

The light brigade

What has been overlooked by many reviewers and potential buyers of the OM-3 is that for each pro lens there is a small and lightweight non-pro equivalent.  These lenses are robust (and weather resistant in the latest versions). They are also sharp and contrasty. What they mainly give up compared to their bigger pro brothers is 2/3 stop of light on primes and 1-2 stops at the long end of the zooms. For me and many other photographers, this is no impediment at all. Here are my recommended five non-pro lenses, which cover every photography genre, in order of focal length. The weights given include lens caps and hoods (except the 60mm). Note: for purists, there is an Olympus variant for every genre, but I slightly prefer the Panasonic Leica versions where shown.

• Astro: Leica Summilux 9mm f1.7:=18mm FFE – Weight: 158g
• Street: Olympus 17mm f1.8m= 34mm FFE – Weight: 156g
• Landscape: Olympus 9-18mm f4-5.6 zoom = 18-36mm FFE – Weight: 186g
• Macro: Olympus 60mm f2.8 = 120mm FFE: Weight: 208g
• Landscape and travel: Panasonic Lumix 14-140mm f3.5-5.6 zoom = 28-280 FFE – Weight: 302g
• Wildlife and birds in flight: Panasonic Lumix 100-300 mm f4-5.6 zoom = 200-600 FFE: Weight: 581g

The total weight of every lens above is 1287g. No other camera system has compact lenses with this range. Indeed, the Sony full frame system, although it has compact cameras like the A7C, only has a single 200-600mm zoom and that weighs 2,115g. That is 300g more than the weight of the OM-3 body plus every lens in the list above. No other camera system comes close to the OM-3 for power and range of lightweight optics.

Conclusion

The remarkable trick that OM Systems has pulled off is that the OM-3 is a great deal more than the OM-1, not less. It genuinely is a hipster street camera – something that the OM-1 could never be. But it is also a full, multi-genre smart camera, capable of going places that the OM-1 cannot get to (because of size) and getting identical results. By a country mile, it is the best urban and travel camera in the world.